


you who were never the one

by blindbatalex



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, also, i mean according to tom they are brothers but you know, trade angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: There is a parade.  They dress as Jedis and ride every roller coaster and salute the fans.  The sun is warm on their skin and they are invincible.  In this moment, they own the world.  The moment stretches into eternity; it snaps, like a limb breaking in two, as soon as it has begun.Tom is leaving.  Julian gets it, he really does, and he wishes he could have done something--been enough--to get him to stay.  If he campaigned harder, maybe.  Got more houses to put #TomStay signs in their front yards.
Relationships: Danny Amendola/Julian Edelman (past), Tom Brady/Julian Edelman
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	you who were never the one

**Author's Note:**

> Few time jumps but hopefully it's not too confusing!

**Had to go crazy to love you. You who were never the one. -Leonard Cohen.**

~*~

Tom’s face is smiling up at him from his screen, frozen in time, as the phone vibrates on the side table. Julian considers not picking it up. What—what else—can Tom have to say to him today? What does he have to say to Tom?

*

Tom is pressing an icepack to his ribs. Take a moment to let that sink in. Tom Brady, greatest quarterback of all time, has followed him home after the game, pulled an armchair up to the bed, and is now holding an icepack against Julian’s injured ribs and doesn’t intend to stop any time soon from the looks of it. Ridiculous.

“Tom, fuck, I am capable of holding my own icepack.”

He brings his own hand to his ribs to demonstrate—his fingers brush Tom’s ice cold fingers on the pack—but has to turn his torso a little in the process too, and fuck, that hurts. Aren’t painkillers supposed to have kicked in by now?

Tom smacks his hand away.

“Shut up.”

Tom has never been an easy person to negotiate with. Especially not when he is wearing what Julian thinks of as his Grim Face of Determination, which, to be frank, he wears most of the time.

Julian sighs—in a slow, controlled way because his ribs do hurt a lot. Playing an NFL game with torn rib cartilage will do that to you. But still—thankfully—he is not in hospital, he is not dying, he doesn’t need to be looked after.

“Don’t you have a wife and a family to go back to?”

The cold feels good against his skin. Tom knows how to hold the thing in place just right—he is applying enough pressure for the cold to take full effect but not so much as to dig into his poor ribs.

“They can wait a few hours.”

He stops.

“Besides, you are family too.”

If he didn’t know the fresh wave of pain it would bring, Julian would laugh. He turns his head to look at Tom, who is frowning slightly. His face is drawn tight—though whether with concern for him or the game they just lost, Julian doesn’t know. He doesn’t know either, how a person can be this intense 24/7.

“Your brother?”

That’s what Tom has called him, multiple times

“Yeah.”

If it didn’t hurt Julian would laugh, because there isn’t a hint of irony in Tom’s voice. He contends himself with a smile. _Hope you and your actual brothers don’t do everything the two of us do, bubs._

*

“Heeey, man!”

Julian says it with a grin stretching from ear to ear. He has picked up the call after all and he thinks this is how he sounds—how he looks—when Tom calls him in the offseason, on days that are not today. On days he hasn’t sent Julian a draft social media post, still being fine-tuned by PR people, announcing his departure from the Patriots.

“Hey!”

Tom is smiling back. 

“What’s up, man?” 

Tom gives him a faint shrug. His smile does not lose any of its luster.

“Just wanted to check in.”

_Just wanted to check in._ Julian has to try hard not to let his smile turn into a sneer. Check in about what? Is he a hotel? If he tells Tom that his post sucks, then what—will Tom scrap it, turn around, and sign an extension?

*

Tom is there, on the other side of the door, when Julian opens it. He is holding a bottle of scotch that looks expensive as fuck and he raises it now to show it to Julian, a mischievous smile on his lips.

It takes Julian a moment to remember how to form words.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asks eventually, wondering whether he lost his edge so bad that he is hallucinating things now.

“Thought we could drink.”

Julian cocks his head to the side. His theory is looking more and more likely.

“But you don’t drink.”

The number of times he has heard Tom lecture the team about looking after their own body and how alcohol—alongside strawberries—was the enemy of a long, fruitful career and a worthy life. The number of times he has tried to cajole Tom into getting a beer with him in a bar and failed.

Tom shrugs a little, tells him there is an exception to every rule, asks if he will let him in.

And so they drink.

They sit outside on Julian’s terrace, overlooking the city. It’s a good day—well, it is a terrible day, but the weather is good for March. The night air is cool but no longer cold on their skin. You can never see the stars in the city—not really—but if he looks up, he can make out the faintest pinpoints of light in the night sky.

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you,” Tom says after a while, breaking the silence that has fallen around them like dusk.

“I know.”

He isn’t sure he does though. I mean, yes, Dola loves him, yes their careers are short and you have to do what’s best for you, he knows all that. It’s just that he thought what they had meant something too. Practicing together, playing together day in and day out, living in the same city, this thing between them even if it never had a name—it should have counted for something. That it wasn’t enough means something.

He looks up at Tom, at the sharp line of his jaw, his eyes with creases slowly settling around them. How many wide receivers has he watched leave, how many times the team turnover completely while only he, Bill, and Kraft stayed still in its center?

It’s nothing to him, business as usual, it must be.

And yet here he is, this man who has a family and who does not care about who leaves and who stays, who does not drink, on Julian’s terrace, drinking with him. Making room for his grief.

“Hey, Tom?” he says quietly.

Tom looks up.

“Thanks.”

Tom smiles. It reaches his eyes. Kind. Gentle. Loving. Not qualities you associate with Tom Brady.

“I’m here for you, man.”

And this wave of warmth that washes over him—because of the alcohol. Julian would like it to be.

*

“Your post looks good.” 

He is using his media training in full force. _Imagine a wall between the persona you project, friendly, upbeat, and how you feel inside._ He wishes he still had his beard. Beards make for great walls.

He laughs. It sounds hollow to his ears.

“Can’t believe you are retiring to Florida.”

_I know it wasn’t an easy decision for you but I will support you no matter what._

“Jules.”

He always loved it when Tom called him that. He hates it today.

“What?”

He says it with so much venom, Tom almost flinches on his screen, though he covers it up in time.

*

Bill’s rule is, you spend as much time as possible with the team in the week leading up to the Super Bowl and as little with your wife, girlfriend or family. And sleeping with WAGs is definitely not allowed. Something about channeling tension to the game and not getting distracted. So WAGs and families are around but not in the same hotel and he gets to hang out with his daughter every day for a couple of hours but that’s it. Save the sex for after the victory is the official motto.

Tom is normally a stickler for rules. The man has an existential crisis if he is two minutes late to practice, and looking after his body, winning—it’s his religion.

So then it makes little sense, what they are doing right now.

Well, the part where Julian ended up in Tom’s suite makes a lot of sense. They hang out all the time on the road. Tom is very competitive so the part where playing Xbox turned into a wrestling match also makes sense. 

Tom somehow ends up on top of him. 

Julian wriggles to try and get free. He takes pride in how he is slippery as an eel and will always find a way to get away whether on the field or off it.

Except Tom knows that, knows him.

“Oh, not so fast.”

He strikes first and pins Julian to the ground by his wrists, fingers curling around them like a vice, his weight pressing down.

Doesn’t stop Julian from struggling.

“Fuck off, grandpa.”

They are both panting. He can feel Tom’s every breath on his face. He can’t foresee the thing Tom does next.

Tom leans down. He crushes his lips against Julian’s.

Julian makes a surprised sound—did his quarterback just kiss him?!—and Tom draws away before his mouth has even finished registering.

He looks down at Julian; fingers around his wrists relax their grip. His eyes are dark, focused, and there is a single question written in them. If Julian tells him to back off, he won’t even speak of it again.

That matters.

But there is only one sensible thing to do: use this moment of weakness to his advantage and attack.

He surges forward and pushes Tom aside, throwing his weight around until they have rolled on the ground and he is on top. Now it’s Tom’s turn to look surprised. His eyes are wide, pupils blown, and now that he has Tom where he wants him, Julian leans down, sneaking one hand under Tom’s t-shirt to find his abs, the other under his waistband, and kisses Tom hard.

Sex with Tom is strange as fuck—unexpected and exactly as how you would expect. As in all areas of life, the bastard is very competitive in bed too, but Julian has never been one to roll over himself, either. More than once, when there is room for conscious thought in his brain he thinks— _are we wrestling or are we fucking?_

But then he tells Julian these things while he is fucking him, sentences broken by his thrusts.

_You know, fuck—do you know how talented you are Jules? When you are- on the field, you are like fire. No one can stop you. Watching you play- I lose my head._

Julian thinks he can come from his voice alone, the praise like a raw confession on his lips, while his hand pumps Julian’s cock.

Afterwards, they fall onto the bed.

Tom is flushed, spent—and so is he. He looks more relaxed than Julian can remember.

“You’ve done this before.”

It’s not exactly a question—there was no hesitation in the way Tom took control, the way he fucked.

Tom nods. 

“It helps with the stress sometimes before major games.”

Well. This is Tom Brady. Of course it’s part of the formula of winning—to him, everything is. Images of him fucking other guys on the team flash across Julian’s mind. Telling them how they are like fire and impossible to catch. Does Gisele know?

To be fair, she is smart and only a fool would marry Tom expecting monogamy.

“So have you.”

Not a question either. He knows, Julian thinks, that it was Dola while Dola was still here. Tom is smart too. Has always been able to read Julian like a book.

They don’t say much after that.

As they are falling asleep, Julian wonders what would happen if he snuggled against Tom. He wants to be held. He wants Tom to hold him. Tom is already gone, lightly snoring, which he will deny in the morning. Julian contends himself with running gentle fingers across Tom’s jaw, his cheek. Tom smiles, and murmurs, words slurring together with sleep—‘love you Jules.’

*

Tom sighs.

“I didn’t want it to end this way, you know that.”

A patented Tom Brady apology, which is not an apology at all.

He didn’t, to his credit. He wanted to stay. 20 years in the same place mean something. It’s just that Kraft and co. dragged their feet, and they were willing to give him an extension, but they weren’t willing to beg him to stay. Not anymore. And Tom doesn’t know how to nurse an injured pride. 

He plays football, Julian thinks, because he has to. There is a nuclear reactor inside of him and the only way to keep it from going off, the only way to teem the terrible energy coursing through his body is to channel it into the game, into being the greatest of all time—a focus so singular it takes everything he has and more to maintain. And now there is an edge of desperation to it too, because even he isn’t immune to time. Even he isn’t a god. And the fallout when time catches up to him and he stops—when he is forced to stop—may be enough to take out an entire city, Julian fears.

“I know.”

He does. It’s the first thing he told Tom and meant today.

“We’ll talk all the time,” Tom promises, “we will hang out in the offseason.”

But he will never catch a pass that defies the laws of physics from him again. Will never hear the crowd at Gillette go crazy again because that—the two of them—should not be possible. Will never lift another Lombardi trophy with him again. 

“Yeah, you better call me or I’ll fly down there and kick your butt, old man.”

Tom laughs. Julian thinks—he wants to think—that there is an edge of sadness to it, that this is hurting him too, that it’s not just a regular old business decision. Julian wonders whether if Julian was better this season, if he dragged the offense further, if the season didn’t end in Tom throwing a six-pick it would have made a difference. Whether there was a way he could have been enough. Maybe if he campaigned harder. Got more houses to put #TomStay signs in their front yards.

“Love you, Jules.”

“Yeah, love you too.”

Tom hangs up and it will be okay.

Tom will find new people to praise and to relieve his stress with and Julian will find another man he can’t keep to fall for. 

Life goes on.

So will they.

*

“When we win do you want to go to Disney World?” Julian asks in a whisper. He can’t see Tom’s face in the dark even though they are lying next to each other.

But he can hear him smiling.

“Hell, yeah.”

There is a parade. They dress as Jedis and ride every roller coaster and salute the fans. The rush of victory is still coursing strong in their veins. 

Tom finds the one moment when there are no cameras around and no one looking, grabs his hand. He beams with pride at his accomplishment as they walk hand in hand with the setting sun in their eyes. The sun is warm on their skin and they are invincible. In this moment, they own the world.

The moment stretches into eternity; it snaps, like a limb breaking in two, as soon as it has begun.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic just came to me and demanded to be written. Seeing Tom in a different jersey next season is going to suck... also please look up pictures of them in disney world from last year if you haven't seen them.
> 
> Regardless, thank you for reading friends! (I imagine, all five of you.) Comments are what give me the energy and will to write more, so please do drop me a line below if you liked this. I'm also @blindbatalex on tumblr, if you want to come to my inbox and cry about this terrible move together.


End file.
